


I'm Lost in the Supermarket

by IrishCoffee



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrishCoffee/pseuds/IrishCoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt issued by my Jim; wanting some Greg floundering at meeting Jim's high shopping demands. I added a bit of him floundering at cooking too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Lost in the Supermarket

It was mid-afternoon, Greg was standing in an alley getting rained on and talking with the coroner who was trying to take the body before they'd finished processing the scene. The coroner didn't want to be getting wet and Greg happily informed him that he was welcome to wait anywhere else. As he was about to continue to inform the coroner what else he could do he was stopped by the vibrating phone in his pocket, taking a second to think about it Greg decided against answering when it vibrated again. The Inspector rolled his eyes and, with his thumb, pointed over his shoulder "Out. We've got work to do." and in that time his phone had gone off twice more. There was now no doubt in his mind who the messages were from and he didn't even have to pull the phone from his pocket. Walking towards the forensic team so it looked like he was working, Greg pulled the phone from his pocket and unlocked it to check the messages when one last one came through. Jim never sent one message and Greg was growing accustomed to it, it was his own unique form of caller ID. Five messages; all from Jim. He scrolled through them and each one was nearly full, rather than the one line of text they usually were. 

It was his shopping list, oh how Greg hated the shopping list. It meant he had to go to the market after work when he just wanted to go home and there was always one thing he couldn't get at a regular store (the nights he had to hit multiple shops in a quest from something strange were the worst) but Greg just did it. He'd been eating better in the last few weeks than he had since he’d been responsible for cooking his own food, which was a lot younger than it should have been. If his choice was to hunt down black truffle oil or eat two day old pizza, he was going to go to that posh food shop and get the truffle oil. 

Today's shopping list was too much though, five messages of ingredients and clever little insults about how tomatoes where those red things on burgers sometimes or that when he asked for chicken he meant raw, not fried. He read things like coriander, purslane, green tomatoes, and what the hell was country bread? One message appeared to be orders to bring home an entire liquor store, Greg didn't even know what 'blue curacao' was, let alone what sort of drink it went in. The last message said "Don't forget to buy yourself something pretty too." Greg groaned loud enough to draw the attention of a few surrounding people, rubbing his eyes between his thumb and forefinger in one slow move, he put his phone back in his pocket. 

He wasn't up for it today, he didn't want to shop for food he didn't understand and eat another strange meal and because, apparently, you can teach old dogs new tricks, Greg came up with the solution. He had been toying with the idea of cooking one night, there was just that whole not-wanting-to-burn-down-his-flat problem. 

Cooking wasn't something Greg was good at, he'd never been good at it. As a teen he could handle a box of mac and cheese, or not turning a grilled cheese into complete charcoal but when one of his younger brothers started to step up and take over cooking duties it was easy to allow him to, they all ate better that wayl. Since there wasn't need for it, the skills appeared to be forgotten and any other time Greg was left to feed himself it was something microwavable or delivered. Then there was the time he tired to cook for a date night in and actually did catch the drapes on fire. However he was determined to do this. So determined, actually, that he'd been picking up a magazine or two in the break room to look through recipes, of course he'd say it was because he'd read everything else in there had he been asked. That's what he was going to do, never mind five messages of ingredients, tonight was the night Greg Lestrade was going to cook a proper dinner. 

Now, left to his own devices Greg would cook a steak and have a pint. What more would you need? This wasn't dinner for him though and putting a half cooked chunk of meat on a plate and telling Jim to eat up wouldn’t go over well. Between his love for take aways and hatred of posh restaurants, it left Greg at a loss but once he wanted to do something he was going to follow through. Making a mental note to go steal some of those magazines (can’t exactly just ask a coworker what to make, what if they asked who it was for? ~~just London’s most wanted, not a big deal~~ They’d also know he was trying to impress and he hated that kind of gossip going around about him) and figure something out back at his office. He turned his attention back to the body in front of him. 

…

Sitting in his office, Greg turned the pages of the food magazine. As it turned out it was harder to find a recipe he could manage, without ruining, than he’d thought. Everything had more steps than should be allowed, some didn’t even make sense, other recipes sounded awful and left him wondering who copied that recipe down and made it, even more had a list of ingredients like what Jim had text to him earlier. The ace up his sleeve, though, was grabbing a few of those men’s magazines. Esquire type ones would put recipes in for one reason or the other (improve your palette, eat healthier, ~~impress your partner~~ ) and he was able to find a few that were easier to manage. There was a salmon recipe that had a sauce to make which sounded tricky but it all sounded like something he could manage. Ripping the page out of the magazine, Greg folded it and tucked it into his wallet and went back to work, already feeling proud of himself.

They’d hit a wall with the alley body, having to wait for some test results to come back before it could even be ruled homicide, so Greg was able to end his day a good 45 minutes earlier than expected, which was nicer than having to stay late and that had started to look like a strong possibility until the test results hold up. Greg threw on his jacket, wrapped his scarf around his neck and walked out the door, he was a man on a mission. Because he’d been working on the case all day, Greg hadn’t responded to Jim’s earlier text, or that’s the excuse he’d give if asked. Before getting in his car, he sent off [Shift ended early, heading to the store now.] figuring that was all the important information in one text...one text. With that Greg got in his car, happy he now only had to go to one store now, and head towards the nearest supermarket. 

With his recipe in hand, Greg made his way into the grocery store. Grabbing a cart he made his way straight to the meat counter to get the fish he needed, after a far too long conversation with the man behind the counter about what was the best kind to get (despite not asking) he was able to move on. He ticked off the items on the recipe that he knew weren’t already back at the flat and was left at a stand still in the baking aisle (even though it was his third trip up this aisle). Having just put the brown sugar in his cart, the last ingredient, Greg realized that he was going to need more to go along with this meal or he’d be back at his original problem of not being able to just serve a hunk of meat to Jim. Potatoes seemed like a logical pairing, he’d had salmon and potatoes before he was sure of it and you could just cook those and put salt and pepper on them and they were fine. Heading to the produce section, Greg went for those big brown potatoes but grabbed the little red ones instead. They were better, right? He wasn’t even go to trying and figure out what to do with the purple ones. Seven red potatoes made it into the cart. 

Now that he was surrounded by all this produce, he felt like there should be a proper vegetable too. Greg wandered around all the fresh fruit and vegetables in hopes that one would magically jump out as something that would go with his meal but everything he passed was either confusing (those little green pumpkin looking things, how the hell do you cook an artichoke, what’s the point of this many types of lettuce) or disgusting (asparagus, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, just to start the list) However, if you walk around long enough, looking as lost as Greg did, you’re bound to attract at least one employee asking if there was anything they could help you with. Seizing the opportunity of a helpful staff member, Greg asked all the wrong questions. He should have asked what veg went with salmon but he didn’t, he asked what was the easiest vegetable to cook, explaining that he wasn’t that great and needed something he couldn’t mess up. The lady laughed a little, something Greg had a hard time letting go but managed too, she explained a few things but one stuck out as the easiest; corn. The poor woman who was tasked to help Greg had told him that it was as simple as boiling water, something he was nearly certain he could handle.

With two ears of corn in the cart, Greg made one last stop down the beer and wine aisle. He thought that wine was probably the best choice, you’re suppose to serve that with fish, but he looked at all the choices and decided against that quickly (of course if he actually liked wine it wouldn’t have been abandoned so easily). Turning to the beer side of things, his comfort zone, Greg went to get the normal six pack when his head filled with the familiar voice complaining about his taste in alcohol. He’d debated buying something of a higher quality for some time now, but it was always for Greg to drink so he could unwind after work. This was enjoyment, not to get drunk, not to mellow out, but to sit and just drink so it made sense to cave and buy something better. Picking up six bottles of something ~~far too~~ expensive that didn’t sound like it had fruit flavor in it or something strange and declaring his trip finished, Greg made his way up to pay. He was nearly home when he realized he should have picked up something for dessert, having to give that up under the knowledge that this meal wasn’t going to be perfect. 

Arriving at his flat, Greg hauled all the bags up the stairs and in the door and went straight to the kitchen so he could put them all down before he took his jacket off. Of course Jim was sitting in the living room (in Greg’s chair, like always) for some reason Greg tried to blow past as though he wasn’t going to be noticed, or that he could sneak anywhere with arms loaded up with grocery bags. “Took you long enough.” Jim gave in greeting. Not stopping, Greg responded “Your ‘welcome home’ came out funny and maybe if you didn’t give me an impossible list of shit to buy I wouldn’t take so long.” Of course he was lying and it was only a matter of minutes before he’d be found out but he wanted the chance to complain about the four messages of food things he was suppose to pick up today...for one meal. Setting the bags on the counter, Greg returned to the entry way to put away his jacket and dumped his pockets. 

Returning to the kitchen he found Jim poking through the bags, not that he was surprised but Greg wasn’t ready, either a big fuss was going to be made, he wasn’t going to actually be allowed to cook, or a fit was going to be thrown because none of this was what Jim wanted. None of those options seemed like fun. 

blah blah blah dialogue. ‘get out of my kitchen I’m going to cook’ ‘hang on lemme faint’ ‘fuck off, I won’t feed you with that attitude’ blah blah blah. 

Laying the now crumpled piece of glossy paper on the counter, smoothing it out, Greg read over the recipe. It was rather ‘simple’ and didn’t take a lot of time to make so he decided to get the potatoes and corn going. Though it was slow work, Greg took four of the red potatoes and chopped them into bite size pieces. Unlike the fish, the rest of this didn’t have a recipe so there wasn’t anything that said how high to turn the oven on or how long to leave anything in, was there something special you were suppose to cook things in? Greg was operating off past meals when he cut the potatoes in the first place. Turning the oven on to 425, that wasn’t all the way but it seemed like a ‘medium’ and so he wouldn’t burn anything suddenly. There was an old baking sheet in the drawer so he dumped the chunks on there and shook a little bit of salt and pepper on them, if they wanted more they could do that themselves. In the pan went, which meant it was time to find one that would fit the corn. Pot after pot was pulled out from the cupboard, each one that seemed like it would do was tested and discarded on the floor behind him, until finally finding the right one. Greg put all the pots back and filled the one he needed up with water and set it on to boil. 

Two parts of the stove were on and running and there wasn’t anything on fire, this was starting to feel like it was going to work. Greg wasn’t sure how long to cook either the potatoes or the corn (he wasn’t sure how he was suppose to know the corn was done without taking a bite) but he knew it was longer than the fish needed. He desperately wanted to go down to his room and change out of his work clothes, into something more comfortable, anything more comfortable but he had a job to do here and he was going to remain focused. 

Walking to the fridge, Greg reached in and came out with one of his beers and opened it up, taking a slow drink and admiring the work he’d done already. The kitchen was a bit of a mess, sure, but prior to Jim it was always a mess (it’s hard to care about how clean a room you never use is). Setting the can by the stove and deciding to work on the sauce, it was literally pouring a few things into a pot and bringing it to a boil, sounded fool proof, in theory. Laying all the things on the countertop, Greg dug through every drawer he had to find the measuring spoons, finding only a ½ teaspoon and a teaspoon but they’d work. He did have to pop into the living room and ask Jim how many teaspoons went into a tablespoon though and after a round of twenty questions (and a dig or two for not just knowing the answer) he was able to walk back into the kitchen with the answer. 

Carefully, Greg measured and counted out the right amount of each ingredient and dumped into the waiting pot. The full bottle of soy sauce was proving to be trouble to get from the bottle to the measuring spoon and he did end up splashing it over his shirt, saying a few colorful things to the bottle Greg tried to wash it out at the sink with little luck. Leaving the light blue work shirt half untucked, wet, with a line of dark brown liquid on it as he went back to work. Everything was in the pot and had been mixed together, it just needed to boil. Taking the opportunity, Greg sat down at the table and took a minute to relax, he had been at work all day after all. After a few minutes (and nearly the rest of his beer) there was a sizzling sound coming from the stove, looking up the sauce was bubbling over the pot in an amber fizz. Greg ran over, swearing the entire way (not as under his breath as he thought he was either), and ripped the pot from the burner, dropping it in the sink. The liquid that was suppose to be in there was nearly gone and what was left was in dark brown clumps in the bottom. Giving that pot up, Greg stomped over to find another one, a bigger one this time so this wouldn’t happen again, he measured the ingredients out again. He was frustrated that things started to go the expected way and was taking it out on a couple of liquids and the bottom of the pot he was attempting to ‘throw’ the liquids into. 

With everything for the sauce back in the pan, Greg leaned against the counter and waited, not about to let this happen again. Since the burner had been left on (who thinks to shut it off when you’re trying to ‘save’ your sauce, though the smell of the foam burning off should have been some sort of hint) the sauce nearly did it again but he gave it a stir and the liquid calmed down. After nearly sitting on top of it the entire time it cooked, the sauce was finished and Greg left it on the back of the stove top until it was needed again. A quick check on the potatoes, still not mushy. Nearly reaching his hand in the boiling water to check the corn, Greg shut the burner off, it seemed like it’d been enough time and he’d check it in a bit. Knowing the fish only needed ten minutes Greg took this time to go change into something a bit more comfortable. Rather than the sweats and tee shirt he’d normally hang out in though, he went for jeans and a tee shirt that was, at least, ‘leave the house’ presentable. He stepped outside to have a quick cigarette, still far too angry over the mistakes that had been made. 

Coming back into the kitchen, Greg checked on his potatoes again and they felt done, his first thought was, of course, to pop one chunk in his mouth but reaching to grab it the fresh-from-the-oven-hot against his fingers was a nice reminder as to why that was a bad idea. Having completed all the extras, Greg put the fish in a pan and into the oven. It needed ten minutes so he pulled his phone out and tried to find the timer on there, no luck. So he went to the microwave, which he knew could be a timer too, but he couldn’t figure out how to make it happen and he thought about just running the microwave with no food in it but figured there was probably something wrong with that. Instead he just kept watch of the clock on the wall. 

The ten minutes ended and the sauce was added and cooked again as per the recipe. As the salmon was sitting in the oven to cook the sauce, (a step Greg didn’t understand...everything was already cooked, why was he cooking it again, but he did as the directions said) he went to get the potatoes and put them into a nicer dish, maybe. Not that he knew if he had one. Unfortunately some of the potatoes were stuck to the pan and more than a few had touches of burnt skin. Getting a few utensils, Greg scooped the potatoes off the pan, trying to leave as little behind as possible, and then scraped off the burnt bits so Jim wouldn’t notice (even if it was still something that would be able to be tasted in them).

Fish was out of the oven and seemed completely unharmed.

Corn was...well it was something, Greg had forgotten to check to see how done it was and just pulled the ears from the water and left them to dry. 

Potatoes now came with some extra seasoning but they were done. 

With all the finished food around him, Greg slumped as he looked at it. What was he suppose to do now? What was etiquette? Did he set the table? Take a plate to Jim? He was purposely making this meal ~~to impress~~ this wasn’t cooking just to eat. He decided that formally setting the table was a step too far, so he pulled down the plates and set the beers on the counter. They could serve themselves and sit to eat wherever. With everything done, Greg hollered from the his spot in the kitchen. “I know you’re not really watching telly, quit listening to what I’m doing and get in here!”


End file.
